Book Description

Automated devices can potentially measure the processes as well as results of armor crew performance. This research analyzed a sample of three tank gunnery engagements in order to (1) identify the stimuli and overt responses in a sample of gunnery tasks; (2) identify and rank-order the response groups, overt responses, and enabling skills for each duty position in the sample engagements; and (3) write prototype measurement specifications for a sample of those response groups, overt responses, and enabling skills. The decisions and overt responses of each crew member for the sampled tasks were displayed in several sets of flow diagrams. Methods for sorting overt responses into groups and for inferring enabling skills were based on three considerations: perception of initiating stimuli, recall of procedures or rules, and motor behavior. These methods yielded a four-tiered behavior hierarchy for each duty position for each engagement. Measures of crewmen's performance at all levels of the hierarchy would permit (a) troubleshooting performance sequences by backtracking scores top to bottom through the hierarchy; (b) testing sequentially from bottom to top; and (c) predicting performance in higher instructional units from scores on lower units. Measurement specifications were written for the response groups, overt responses, and enabling skills in a main gun precision engagement.